You don't get off the hook as easily as presenting a hatchet and suggesting that matters be buried as your last word.

My comments about the snap you posted are based entirely on the data as presented in the photograph. The provenance and aroma of the briefcase have no bearing on the matter. The featured player's demeanour and comments you have made in your posts regarding the local peasantry and their methods say plenty.

As does the fact that this picture (and the ensuing discussion) miss the mark of relevance to this thread by a county or two.

"increasing" your thinking can't cause your thinking to break out of that corral

Yes it can. I not infrequently change my mind based on further reading and thinking and on almost every subject that comes to mind, I have moved beyond anything I was ever taught. YMMV but actually, I don't believe it does.

But what he feels, in other words the unconscious impact of a photograph may not depend at all on his cultural background. It may depend only on his humanity. What comes to mind is pictures of the execution grounds in the book Imperial China Photographs 1850-1912. Anybody who's actually human is going to respond to those pictures of people lined up to be killed, and bodies lying on the ground, in the same way. This kind of response, by the way, is the heart of street photography's effectiveness.

That is a powerful example, but also a bit of a special case and it doesn't do the job you are asking it to in your line of argument. I don't know the photographs you refer to but I imagine they might cover similar ground to Goya's etchings of the Peninsular War - eg this. Such images certainly have universal impact based on humanity, but even there the impact can be enriched and nuanced by knowledge of what is going on, the artist's other work and so on. And there are other images we can't make much of at all (emotionally or conceptually) without cultural knowledge.

To fully appreciate the cultural apparatus necessary to respond to photographs or other images, it is helpful to do the thought experiment involving a lost amazonian tribe never in contact with world culture. Hand one of them even the most "universally" appealing of street photographs and they will initially see a rectangular two-dimensional object with marks on it. After a while, they might learn to read the image. A lot of what I mean by culture goes under our radar - we take it for granted and assume it is universal.

I kicked this thread off with one simple, honest ambition: to provide a single, concentrated source (yet again!) where we could post links to snappers whose work we enjoy in the hope that it may provide other readers with similar experiences and pleasures.

If it's just going to become another forum for the splitting of semantic hairs, then I'm done with the whole damned thing.

You're right, Rob, but how often does this not happen when a thread is as general as Links to Photographers?

My apologies to you and the others who might have been enlightened by the links. I should have known better than to get into an extended discussion with academics who believe naming something is the same thing as understanding it.

You're right, Rob, but how often does this not happen when a thread is as general as Links to Photographers?

My apologies to you and the others who might have been enlightened by the links. I should have known better than to get into an extended discussion with academics who believe naming something is the same thing as understanding it.

Give me a break, Rob. In your many (and almost always interesting) posts you have frequently moved threads in directions totally unconnected with their starting points. And this one has included several more links to interesting images, including from me.

And come off it, Russ. I am not an academic and I don't believe that naming something is the same thing as understanding it. Nothing I have written provides any warrant for either of those ad hominem assertions. I have simply presumed to argue a different line to yours on a topic which someone else introduced. Further discussion is clearly futile but couldn't we end it without a cheap shot?

Two things I observe: his simple portrait style is what I imagine I'll get from my new terrace 'studio' space; I hate the system of moving thumbnails - I fight hard to keep up with the distracting motion as well as linger long enough to absorb what I'm seeing.

There's probably a way to switch off, but it's yet to be discovered (by me); everything either drifts to the right or to the left. I have to rush off and lie down and stick in the eye-drops so shall watch the rest of his site this evening.

Thanks for posting - seems to be a good set of images in store for later!

Two things I observe: his simple portrait style is what I imagine I'll get from my new terrace 'studio' space; I hate the system of moving thumbnails - I fight hard to keep up with the distracting motion as well as linger long enough to absorb what I'm seeing.Rob

Have you started using "the studio" Rob?

Herewith another link to a South African photographer, his work "Enter Exit" I found quite interesting.

Thanks, Riann, I've now put it on 'favourites' for later on - too much sitting at a hard swivel chair for tonight - the couch and BBC TV call!

Nope, no use of the 'studio' yet - the painters have finally moved onto my building and will soon be working on the terrace - should boost the bounce illumination a stop or so! Irons in the fire with a couple of ladies - not stars but possible subjects, but going on past local experience, it never comes to anything in the end: they chicken out. Bloody little islands!

Islands can be nice, but they hold you as much prisoner as they give you security. It would be nice just to jump into the car and have Europe at your feet; to do that, you need to buy expensive ferry tickets and book your return... if you want Open ticketing, that's even more expensive; throw in about a hundred quid a day for small hotel and food, and a week runs away with a grand. I'd rather keep it, in the circumstances. It was of so different a thought process when thinking couples! In all ways.

Following the discussion by Walter, Russ et al. about the in- and exclusion of man-made objects in landscapes, I thought it would be interesting to show one extreme example of inclusion. I really admire the cityscape series by Beate Guetschow. She composes vast urban landscapes which look devastated and abandoned yet people are casually but sparsely present. The images are printed in B/W in very large formats. They really manage to make you feel queasy for no apparent reason. Unfortunately, there seem to be no high resolution images on the web, but have a look here and here.

I didn't read the blurb - I now seldom do read these because I prefer to view things without pevious conditioning/softening up of myself - and so on to the pictures: I actually like the b/white ones but not the colour ones at all; I think that they (b/w) are good examples of the genre (and it most certainly is a genre and far from unique) and I enjoy looking at them on the monitor, as I would, too, in a well-printed book which I would not buy, but would, nonetheless, enjoy.

I'm sure there would also be commercial outlets for that kind of material, apart from the art segment, that is.

Always a reassurance and pleasure that there was a time when things happened so well.

I think a lot of the interest in Duffy is a result of his son's involvement in what survives of his archive. Bailey, of course, is a master of his own PR. But what a shame so little is seen or heard in the present era of Terence Donovan.

Always a reassurance and pleasure that there was a time when things happened so well.

I think a lot of the interest in Duffy is a result of his son's involvement in what survives of his archive. Bailey, of course, is a master of his own PR. But what a shame so little is seen or heard in the present era of Terence Donovan.

That's right; he was possibly even more successful in financial terms because he did a lot of commercials early on (this is only from reading - never met him) and even had a foray into movies. Perhaps the most general public publicity he had was when he topped himself, as also happened with Bob C-C who managed to do some books; he (Bob) had a long interview in the BJP about the huge difficulties he faced with his last book attempt, and I think it never flew.

The thing that really clicked with me on the latest link I posted (Duffy) is that he felt it was all going south as early as the late 70s; that’s very interesting for me, because it was the 70s (early) when I realised – via harsh reality – that much of the Scottish fashion business was sliding into oblivion or being serviced – more cheaply! – down in London! That’s what pushed me to try calendars, which saved the business from extinction and opened the door to stock.

Several younger posters here have argued that this is still a ‘golden age’ for photography; Cooter has also pointed to the fact that budgets are lower and you have to do more for the same return. In my own experience, the slide is very real and not simply a matter of the keeper calling time on the hire of my particular little rowing boat. Because some are still working doesn’t mean that the business hasn’t deteriorated; it only means that some are doing what’s currently still left to be done. Okay, digital had a huge accelerative effect on things, and the reports of excellent London processing labs closing their doors filled the BJP; camera firms collapsed with the times; but beyond that tragedy of lost jobs, photography also lost its mystique: there really was a time when being a fashion or calendar snapper gave you a cache that being an accountant or surgeon did not. I enjoyed all that. Do as many have it today, I wonder?

But perhaps it’s the same with music now; electronic dissemination has taken the place of hard copies and the tactile and visual buzz of a beautiful piece of LP art will probably never be experienced again. Prided myself with my LP collection, keeping the things in plastic sleeves (still have most of them) and there’s no way that clicking onto Youtube produces the same excitement, and neither does listening in front of the monitor. What has happened is that we have traded convenience for the experience.

Say what anyone will, a lot has truly been lost in the march forward, a lot that wasn’t dross but really a source of much personal pleasure.

Oh dear, Bob Carlos Clake! Another great. And what a wit! At the time that I was considering models to be excess walking protein, B C-C said that models were like ladybirds, simply a wood mite in a polka dot frock.

Oh dear, Bob Carlos Clake! Another great. And what a wit! At the time that I was considering models to be excess walking protein, B C-C said that models were like ladybirds, simply a wood mite in a polka dot frock.

Rob, I realise you probably loathe the on-axis lighting but it works for me.

Ah, but the difference is that this snapper knew what he was doing!

It's interesting to look back at the videos and their times. There are those who will deride/criticise it all as woman-as-object; in my opinion, far from it.

If you look really carefully at those heads and bodies you don't see weakness, you don't see submission: you see the clearly expressed power and amusement in the faces of those ladies.. it's one of the greatly exciting features that some of the fair sex possess. That a majority may not is no good reason for it to deny those that do. I love them, and thank's for the links..